


Shadows

by venndaai



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bisexuality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25511032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Hours after losing his father, Jon has an encounter in the palace library.
Relationships: George Cooper/Jonathan of Conté
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goseaward](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goseaward/gifts).



The Library of the royal family of Tortall could not hold a candle to the vast collections of Carthak or the City of the Gods, but it was still quite a large and ancient assortment of books, scrolls, and artifacts, and a not insignificant vaulted roof spanned rows of shadowy shelves. The books didn’t see many visitors, these days. The royal family had not been great patrons of scholarship in recent memory, and mostly those disturbing the library were pages, sent to copy the words of long dead men. Debates on the code of chivalry, and exactly what a ruler owed to the crown.

Those pages or servants looking for places to hide usually found more convenient dark corners. 

Jon wasn’t sure he’d say that he liked the library, but he was quite familiar with it. He had always needed less sleep than other people. A gift of the gods, or perhaps a curse. The Dream King was said to have a sense of humor. It felt like a curse, when he was young, and meant to be in bed long before his mind would agree to drift into darkness. The Palace’s halls and grounds were well guarded and busy at almost all hours, and even a small, quiet boy could not easily roam at night. 

When Jon was younger, he’d often found his way to the stacks during middle of the night sleepless wanderings, and now, returning, the smell of dust greeted him like an old friend. The message crumpled in his hand was unsigned, and had been left on the windowsill of his bedroom. The room that his uncle had told him he could still sleep in, tonight, while the king’s quarters were being prepared. 

His cousin never visited the library these days, and that alone was good enough reason to follow the instructions he’d been given. 

He walked lightly, soundlessly through the shelves until he felt the draft of an open window caress his face, and saw a patch of darkness that was a deeper, richer black.

He paused, and waited. Fear nibbled at the edges of his mind, the sharp kind that came to him in battle, but it was distant, on the edges of the vast dark ocean that had opened up inside of him. 

He watched as the shadow moved, and became a cloaked man, and he waited, preparing for assassins or something stranger, before the shadow spoke in a familiar voice that made Jon’s heart tremble. 

“Your majesty’s up late.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Jon said, and his voice threatened to break. 

  
  
  
  


After the Sweating Sickness, the curse of insomnia became a nightmare. The Dream King’s realm felt far too close to the black well of nothing that lurked on the edges of his memory. Sometimes he could spend hours curled up in his too-large bed, shaking with stupid fear that once he fell asleep, he wouldn’t wake up again. 

On the day of his sixteenth birthday, Jon received gifts from friends and family and attended an official royal dinner; apart from that, the day was occupied by lessons and duties and Court. As the sun sank towards the horizon, though, Gary and Alan met him by the servants’ gate and the three of them ran laughing out into the City. 

The door of the Dancing Dove was slightly ajar, spilling laughter and music onto the darkening street. Gary grinned at Jon, and took his arm, and Alan kicked open the door. As they entered, Jon heard a wild cheer go up. 

“Jonny!” the Court of the Rogue were shouting, and someone was pressing a drink into his hands. By the fire, Lisse, a handsome young woman with a scarred face, started up a serenade. 

“Bring him here,” someone said, and the words were not spoken loudly, and the voice was not particularly authoritative or assuming, but they dropped into the din of the tavern and spread like wildfire, and hands were pushing him forward, towards the chair at the back and the man sitting on it, legs at a jaunty angle but somehow still more regal than Jon’s father ever was on his gem-studded throne. Jon let himself be pushed, but he took note of Alan and Gary, how they were pulled laughingly down to seats close by, pretty girls handing them drinks. He took note of each face he saw in the crowd, just as he’d been trained by Miles, since he was young- _make a list of each distinguishing feature, find one thing to tie it together, attach it to the name-_ and almost wished he could stop himself. The crown prince was required to attend executions, sometimes.

“It’s our Jonny’s birthday today,” George Cooper said, with a sly charming grin, and raised a large glass in a toast. “Let’s make it a special one.”

They proceeded to do just that. He drank more than he’d ever drunk before. Alan and Gary left around ten, talking of curfew and the work they had to do in the morning; he had more work than either of them, but he stayed. There was no room for night terror in the warm brightness of the Dancing Dove, and he was a year closer to the Ordeal of Knighthood, and he wanted to be Jonny, didn’t want to stop, not tonight. 

  
  
  


He was unable to stop his hands from reaching forward, despite being very conscious that sudden sharp moves around this man were a bad idea. His fingers fastened around elegant wrists. “Gods, what are you doing here? Have you gone touched in the head?”

“Can’t I visit a friend?” George said, and turned his hands over, quickly, a street conjurer's slight of hand, a pickpocket’s practiced maneuver. Jon was trained to swing a sword, to control a warhorse, to steer a country. He’d freely admit George had the advantage, when it came to being quick and subtle. He could admire the effectiveness of a move, even as it stopped his breath in his throat. George’s fingers weren’t as calloused as a knight’s or a servant’s, and they were unmarred by scars or badly healed breaks. George had a healer for a mother, and Eleni Cooper had a son who lived by the cleverness of his fingers. 

Fingers that were twining through Jon’s, as unstoppable as a desert sandstorm burying a camp. 

Jon might be enough of a strategist to recognize when he was beaten from the start, but he was also stubborn enough to go down fighting. “You can’t be here, you idiot,” he hissed. “What, do you think I need another corpse to bury?”

“I’m hurt, that your Majesty thinks so lowly of my skills,” George said, and what hit Jon like a sandbag was the way that tone hadn’t changed. Was still the same teasing, lilting drawl, friendly but with that bit of distance that never quite closed. In the low light George’s hazel eyes were gray, but the way they were half-lidded, the way George was watching, the dispassionate observation that could turn with no notice to violent action- 

Sometimes he wished very badly to be Alanna, to fight his way through life with no knowledge or notice of the complicated things happening behind other people’s eyes. He missed her. He missed his childhood. 

“Don’t do that,” Jon said. “Don’t try to make me mad to distract me. I’m not Alanna.” 

His fingers were white-knuckled, squeezing the blood from George’s hands. Vaguely he felt pain- George was, unusually, wearing a ring on one hand, and the corners of its stone bit into his skin, he was pressing so hard. He realized his own signet ring must be hurting George more, but when he tried to relax his hands they wouldn’t move. 

George let go first, no doubt accustomed to extracting his fingers from such situations. Jon’s suddenly abandoned left hand clenched, and then there was a light touch on his cheek, and Jon felt himself go still. 

“You’re not,” George agreed amiably. 

Jon leaned forward, breathing hard, and pressed his forehead against George’s cloak-covered shoulder. 

George’s left hand thumb rubbed against the side of Jon’s palm. “It’s all right, lad,” he said, softly. 

It’s not, Jon thought, but he knew if he opened his mouth he’d sob. His fingers clenched around George’s, and then relaxed. He lifted his head, leaned back, and pulled George’s left hand out of the shadows and into candlelight. 

“I haven’t seen you wear this ring before,” he said. In the yellow candlelight, he could see it clearly, confirming his suspicions. It was a simple enough circle of silver, holding a small but well-cut flawless blue sapphire. 

“Ah,” George said, sounding both wistful and a bit embarrassed. “I suppose you haven’t.” 

“You kept it, all these years?” Jon felt his mouth bend into a smile, and somehow that made the tears threaten even more. He had to take a moment to blink them back. “That was for Darkness, and Moonlight.” 

“Lad,” George said, and even in the deep shadows Jon could see the curve of his smile, or maybe just hear it in his voice. “Those horses were such a good deal for me, they might as well have been stolen, given what I got in exchange.”

  
  
  


“All right, that’s enough,” George said, when Jon’s head started to sink towards the table. “I’m not letting you out on the street in this state. Come on upstairs.” 

“I am fine,” Jon had said, or tried to. Something unintelligible came out of his mouth. George laughed. He’d been matching Jon drink for drink, or so Jon had thought, and Jon wasn’t considered a lightweight, among his friends (that had always been Alan.) But it occurred to Jon that George had probably had a lot of practice in appearing to match someone in drinking. Still, George did look flushed, his eyes bright. It made Jon notice how young he was; just a boy like Jon, really. 

He wondered what it had been like, to be a boy and to choose kingship, instead of having it chosen for you. To fight for it. 

George helped him up the stairs. He really was more drunk than usual, and at one point he slipped, and might have fallen if George hadn’t laughingly caught him. The stairwell was well lit by warm candlelight, and the gold flames reflected in George’s eyes as George’s hands slid under Jon’s back. Jon thought, suddenly, _I want to kiss him._

It was the kind of thought brought on by drink and excitement. The first time he’d gotten a thought like that it had been about Raoul, and he’d panicked a little, because he was a prince and he was going to be a king, and he couldn’t afford to be- different, to be strange in ways that would lose him the love of his people. But after it had happened a few times he’d learned that it was something easily controlled, set aside. He got used to it. His heart sped up sometimes when he saw the curve of a noblewoman’s neck- or when Raoul lifted him up into a hug- or Alex, sweating and panting after a difficult duel, his usual composure in disarray- or when Alan smiled at him, rare and unexpected as the sun on a cloudy day. 

Or when George Cooper looked at him with those clear, warm eyes.

There was a bed, upstairs, tucked away in a small room that smelled comfortingly of sweet herbs. Jon vaguely registered that it was tiny and hard, compared to the bed waiting for him at the palace. He fell down onto it. 

“I’ll bet there’ll be hell to pay if you’re found missing,” George said, from somewhere above him. “I’ll wake you early.” 

“They’re used to me wandering,” Jon muttered. He waved a hand. “I’ll take the punishment. It’s fine.” 

“Ah,” George said. There was a pause. Jon’s head throbbed from the wine. Then there was a hand, tentatively smoothing his hair out of his eyes. 

“Sleep well, Prince,” the King of Thieves said. 

“You can call me cousin,” Jon murmured. “That’s what royalty calls each other, you know.” 

A soft laugh. “I don’t think I’d make a good cousin, Jonny. I’ll stick with friend, then.”

Jon smiled, though he was already falling asleep. “Good,” he said. 

  
  
  


“The friendship of a king,” Jon said. “Is that what you bought? I’m not sure it was a good investment, with how things are going.” 

George’s eyes looked at him levelly. Jon felt himself flush a little. He could be forgiven, he thought, for acting a little badly, today. Not in the throne room, no. Not in front of the royal- in front of _his_ advisors. His court. But he could be rude and cruel to his friend, and that friend wouldn’t call him on it, would only look at him with those far too calm eyes. 

“I never had a father,” George said, and Jon let go of his hand, to cover George’s mouth with his palm. It was an impulsive movement, and the consequences of it took a second to hit him. He could feel the roughness of the other man’s stubble. The shape of his long mouth. 

“Don’t,” he said. “You don’t understand. You don’t know. No one does. So don’t try.” 

“All right,” George said, his lips moving under Jon’s palm. Jon let his hand fall. 

“You’re right,” George said. “I don’t know. But I know what it’s like to be a king. And I know what it’s like to be alone.”

Jon brushed wetness from his eyes. “Everyone’s calling me Majesty, and here I am hiding from my subjects and crying into your shoulder. You must still be seeing that fifteen year old boy, when you look at me.” 

“I see a king,” George said. “The only one I’ve ever wanted to swear myself to.”

“That’s not what I want you to see,” Jon whispered. “Can’t you- of all people- just see-”

“A man?” George said. There was a pause, a moment when the deep silence of the midnight library settled over Jon’s ears. Then he heard George breathe in. Not a sharp noise, but one that seemed significant. 

“Aye,” George said. “I see you.”

They looked at each other in silence for a while. He wasn’t the only one who’d changed since they met, Jon thought. The boy who’d tucked him into bed once had grown into a tired, watchful man. Who’d risk his life, to come comfort a friend. 

“I’m going to go have a word with the library guard, and the personal guard Gary’s father forced on me,” Jon said. “If you’re not here when I get back, I’ll tell my lord Provost exactly where he can find you to drag you before your King.” 

He saw the glint of teeth bared in a grin. “No fear.” 

The guards didn’t put up more than a token protest, when he told them to stay outside the doors of the library and not let anyone enter for the next hour. Everyone was treating him with so much care today, like he was fragile as an eggshell. He hated that they were probably right to do so. He didn’t want to be handled carefully.

He went back into the shadowed shelves. 

George was still there.

“Come on,” Jon said, grabbing his wrist again. There were couches at intervals throughout the library. He dragged his hooded Rogue to the nearest one and pushed him down onto it. George went without protest. 

They were out of the deep shadows now, the couch lit by overlapping pools of candlelight, and Jon paused to admire the view. George’s crooked nose and curling hair had featured in his fantasies for a long time now. There was a very small faint scar over one of the Rogue’s eyebrows. Jon bent down and pressed his lips to it, gently.

“Jon,” George said, like a prayer. Not Majesty, Jon thought, with satisfaction.

Jon moved lower, and kissed George’s jaw. He’d meant to be gentle with that too, but he was overwhelmed suddenly by the way George smelled- sweat and musk overlaid with some kind of sweet herbal scent and the faint sensory ghost of the Dancing Dove, spilled wine and cooked meat. George smelled like the world outside the Palace, that Jon would never be able to freely wander again. George’s large hands were making fists in Jon’s tunic. Jon hadn’t been touched like this in so long, not since Alanna left. Hadn’t been touched like this by George since-

There had only been the one time. Back in what he thought of now as the good times, after he’d been made a knight and a man, before everything had- Back when he’d still had a cousin, and parents, and had been a man but only a man, not a Voice or a king. He and Alanna had been dancing around each other still, and he’d had vague stupid dreams of a proper royal match. Love and duty together, like his parents had. Because Alanna said everyone would know she was a woman, someday. 

But his fumbling attempts to initiate something with Alanna only made her angry, and that made him angry, and he’d spent more time with George, who never got pissed off when you said something stupid to him, only laughed. George who flirted brazenly with pretty girls and boys alike, as though it didn’t matter, and maybe in the Court of the Rogue it didn’t. George who, one evening, when they were talking together in a private room, put his hand on Jon’s, and Jon thought, why not? 

No noble etiquette to follow, no dreams of a royal marriage, they couldn’t even see each other without disguises, and yet sometimes it felt like George was the only one who ever saw him bare of masks. 

They’d still been friends after. Jon had known they would be. That George would smile and laugh and pat him on the shoulder just the same as ever. And Jon would smile back. 

He was tired of smiling, now. 

He’d wasted so much time. He’d thought he would be Prince forever, able to wander as he wished.

Jon sucked hard on the warm curve of George’s jaw, and bit down with his teeth. 

George gasped a prayer to the Great Mother. Jon grinned. He might have lost George’s world, but he had George, for tonight, at least. 

_Make me forget it all,_ he thought. _Make me forget who we are, in the shadows. Just for tonight._

  
  
  



End file.
